


Our Lives in These Empty Spaces Aside

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Series: Infinity Country [4]
Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Spoilers up to Infinity Country. (140-ish, getting over trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-06
Updated: 2008-02-06
Packaged: 2018-08-31 08:45:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8571916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: Kurogan keeps an eye on the kid; for all that he's similar to the brat, he moves in a completely different way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://springkink.livejournal.com/profile)[springkink](http://springkink.livejournal.com/): _\- Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, Kurogane/Syaoran: masturbation - “I can’t think of her”_

**Title:** Our Lives in These Empty Spaces Aside  
**Fandom:** Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles.  
**Warnings:** Spoilers up to Infinity Country. (140-ish, more or less?)  
**Characters/couples:** Kurogane/Syaoran. Implied Syaoran/Sakura.  
**Summary:** Kurogan keeps an eye on the kid; for all that he's similar to the brat, he moves in a completely different way.  
**Rating:** NC17.  
**Notes:** Written for [](http://springkink.livejournal.com/profile)[**springkink**](http://springkink.livejournal.com/): _\- Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, Kurogane/Syaoran: masturbation - “I can’t think of her”_

 **Our Lives in These Empty Spaces Aside**  
__Our lives in these empty spaces aside  
I'm tired of walking around with my hand on my gun  
I'm tired of watching them wind you up to see if you'll run  
Tonight I'm going to go out and have me some fun  
I'm tired of walking around here with my hand on my gun  
baby, no pain, no gain  
"Sort of a Protest Song", Matthew Good Band

 

 

 

The new world is dark and yet bright, with neon lights and huge, imposing buildings of steel and concrete hiding the sky.

The wizard keeps his hold on the princess and Kurogane has to decide between focusing on those two or keeping an eye on the kid and their surroundings before conceeding, for the moment, to the unhealthy energy that this world has and the fact that a new-comer is with them, someone that, for all that he's similar to the brat, moves in a completely different way.

"There is a feather," the manjuu calls, from where it's perched over the wizard's head. "But I'm not sure where..."

"We need to find a shelter," Fai says, shifting his arms a little. The princess remains pale but she gives a soft smile, leaning her head against the wizard's shoulder. The kid seems as if he wants to say something before he looks down. Kurogane resists the urge to curse.

"Let's go."

He eyes the kid, and the kid looks at him for a moment before he nods, walking in front of Fai and Sakura, eyes barely glancing towards the princess for a moment before he walks forward, his stance that of a warrior, different than the scholar ways of the other Syaoran, and Kurogane wonders just what other differences this world will bring.

*

They walk through the alleys and the shadows, trying not to call too much attention to themselves, but that's not saying much, with the ways the people there watch him, eyes dark and vicious, a lazy curl to their smiles that makes Kurogane wish he could tell the manjuu to bring out Suohi, but it's hiding with the kid, and he doesn't want to call unnecessary attention just yet.

By the way the kid curls his hands, as if searching for the hilt of his sword, he knows he's not the only one who'd feel better if they had more protection.

The kid stops at the same time he does, two seconds before Fai does the same, holding tighter the princess against him. They both press close as a blonde woman with a short, tight dress that barely reaches the middle of her thighs and knee high boots comes out from the shadows grinning, a man about her height with serious blue eyes by her side.

“Well, well. Newcomers,” the woman grins, cocking her head. “And I doubt you have the Vision's permision to wander around our territory. Am I right?”

Kurogane frowns and curls his hands tight into fists as he hears people aproaching, perhaps expecting a fight. It gets worse when the blonde takes out a gun and fires it against the wall they're near. She smirks, something lazy and self-assured.

“Unless you want to be my new ashtray, don't try to mess with my prey, got it?” she asks, and Kurogane looks at the startled man that had been nearing them. The blonde grins. “Now scram, or I'll break all your bones and then hang you from your toes until you lose them.”

“Do you always have to be so rude?” The man sighs, shaking his head.

“It does the job, Clef!”

The man – Clef – also has a gun strapped to his waist, Kurogane can see his holder from underneath the trenchcoat he wears, as he gets close to them. Syaoran is ready to fight, Kurogane realizes, and he almost puts a hand on his shoulder before he does something stupid. The wizard mutters his name, too, and then there's the princess' voice, questioning and worried the urge seems controlled.

Clef looks at Sakura and at them each in turn before he gives a small nod.

“There's a hospital nearby. We'll escort you there, until our boss decides what to do with you. Presea?”

“You never let me have any fun,” the woman – Presea – pouts at them before she waves her gun, a signal for them to start walking. Kurogane glances and finds her pressing some sort of pill into her ear, cocking her head and pressing a pin on her dress. “And you're gonna make the report, Clef. Yeah, Lantis? I need to speak with the boss. Uh-huh.”

Walking by the wizard's side, Syaoran looks serious, angry, and Kurogane knows that he'd be feeling better if he could have his sword out, because it's the same for him.

*

By the time the doctor finishes tending their wounds – stitches for the kid's legs, bound tight, bandages for his back and the princess is pretty much told not to stand upon her leg for at least a month, her leg put in a cast – the thugs come back inside.

The nurses had muttered something, when they first come back, Vision something, and he had recognized that look of distrust on their faces.

Fai keeps his stand by the princess' sides when Clef and Presea come inside, holding her hand where she's sleeping. The manjuu keeps pressed against his side and Kurogane resists the urge to stand up and glare.

“You need to buy your permission to remain here,” Clef tells them, though not unkindly.

Only that this time, they don't have their clothes to sell and get some money; they've brought nothing from Tokyo but their wounds and a hell of a lot of missing things; Fai's eyes, Sakura's smile. The brat.

“Luckily for you, our boss is running a tournament,” Presea grins, sitting down and crossing her legs, casually showing a wide strip of thigh and, much more dangerous, the knife buckled there. “And since he's a brat--”

“Presea!”

“He says that you can join,” Presea shrugs, the lazy curl of her smile wicked and smooth at the same time. “He'll even let you join the big one, if you do well there.”

“The big one?” Fai asks, sitting carefully again on Sakura's beath.

“You'll find more about that, if you do well enough in the single-eliminations,” Clef answers, glaring at his partner who just shrugs, leaning her chin against her hand. Then he looks at them again, and there's kindness in his voice, soft and low. “Don Vision has given you a place to stay, too. That, too, will be paid according to how well you do on the tournament.”

“So you're saying we can get in this tournament,” Kurogane starts, glaring at the man. “Or?”

“Or nothing,” Presea interrupts, shrugging. “You infiltrated the Vision's territory, you have to pay.”

“I'll do it,” the kid answers, expression serious.

The expression on the thug's face is strange for a moment, distant, before the woman smiles as she stands up.

“Well, let's go to your place, right? I suppose you'd like to rest.”

In their car, as they drive them, Kurogane listens the thugs mutter between them.

“What's Eagle thinking? Ever since Hikaru--” the woman says, and she has lost the mischievous curl to her voice, now something dark and heavy and sad in it.

“You know it's not our place to judge.” Clef answers. He glances towards the mirror for a moment, and then he sighs. “We just follow orders.”

*

The first thing he and the kid do is scan the whole place, counting all the plugs and electronical device that's been placed to keep track on them. Fai puts Sakura over the bed and then he comes out, giving a soft nod that tells them that there's track devices there, too. They take them all of – twenty five -, gather them up in a bag that then they throw away.

Then, the manjuu screams from the living room, jumping up and down over the couch.

“It's the feather!” Mokona screams, bouncing up and down. “Look, look!”

The voice that informs them about the rules of the tournament, the way someone will lead and control its fighters with their will alone, sounds overly cheerful and young. The hologram shows the details of a fight between two, and it keeps on precise instructions about how they won't be able to fight if their leader hesitates.

“That means,” Kurogane mutters as the hologram cheerfully goes down. “That we need the princess to do this.”

“Sakura is still too injured for this!” the wizard answers, almost glaring, enraged at the idea of making Sakura do anything else.

The kid remains quiet, but he's the first one to turn when the door to the princess' room opens and she limps a little, pale but determined.

“I'll do it,” she shakes her head a little, still holding unto the door before she limps forward, trying to keep her balance. “We need to get the feather before Syaoran-kun comes here.”

The other Syaoran is the one closest to her, and Kurogane watches the way his eyes darken for a moment before he moves forward, the moment it seems that the princess is going to fall. The princess flinches, though, before the kid can get close enough. The boy stops. Fai moves by his side and helps hold her up gently, offering her arm to lean against.

“Fai-san, please,” Sakura asks, her eyes wide and determined. “We have to do it. Besides, that country...”

The wizard's expression softens the way it only has done for the princess since he lost his eye and he smiles, gently.

“If it's what Sakura-chan wants,” he says, nodding a little. “But you have to rest, Sakura-chan. We can talk more about it tomorrow.”

Kurogane frowns as those two walk towards the room again, most of the princess' thin frame leaning against Fai's equally thin frame, both of them lost to their secrets and kinship. To his side, Syaoran's fist tighten and then release, forced, uneasy.

*

“He attacked us,” the kid says when he asks. His voice is low and careful, though, and the frown he has seems to be more out of concentration rather than anger or, rather, the anger left aside for the moment and Kurogane wonders if it's the first time he has actually spoken about this. “My clan. We did our best to stop him, but he was too strong.”

“What was he searching?”

“Me, I think,” and Syaoran curls his hand tight, eyes dark and Kurogane frowns. “And. Sakura.”

“The princess?”

He shakes his head, eyes still on the tight curl of his hands. “She's not a princess in my dimension. She was a magician, a healer... she was going to be my mother's magician.”

Kurogane feels cold dread squeeze inside of him. He knows the answer even before he asks.

“Was?”

The kid's face clouds and his hair hides his eyes. It's similar and yet so different to the way the other one used to do the same gesture.

“She wasn't the Sakura he was searching for,” he finally admits as if he was breaking.

Kurogane closes his eyes and doesn't ask more questions.

He knows how it feels, being unable to protect your precious ones only too well.

*

It keeps on tearing, everything, little by little. It makes Kurogane feel helpless and he has never dealt well with that feeling. The wizard smiles at him and doesn't look at him if he can avoid it, drinks his blood as if it was poison and as if he was despairing each time. The princess slowly but surely changes, hardens, something locked inside her eyes but she keeps flinching when the kid gets near. And the kid keeps on distant and damn apologetic about being who he is, as if he had chosen to have his whole world stolen by a psycho that had kept him a prisioner for so many years.

Even the damn manjuu changes, not calling him or anyone names as it just curls tight against them, or smiles a little when they come back, relief rather than annoying cheerfulness in its voice, and then it looks at them with its sadness spreading everywhere, and Kurogane curses everything of this world as he does nothing but wait.

He fucking hates to wait.

*

Even before the first thump of a trained foot against a wall, Kurogane opens his eyes.

The kid is doing it again. He can hear the thump of his body as it jumps, even though the kid is being careful. He can hear the way the dirt shifts when the kid keeps on fighting nothing but his own frustration. It's not that the kid's being noisy, it's just that he's fucking trained to hear things like that.

He stands up and walks outside. There's not much room for them to practice, in the place the Vision family gave them, and Infinity is way too dangerous to go and find another place; neither he nor the kid would just leave Sakura and Fai unless they absolutely must, so the spare room behind has to be enough.

He watches the kid for a moment, realizing that he's still expecting Syaoran's way of fighting, and not this mix of that and another set of training. The kid is trying to get both mixed but he's not there yet, not when his focus isn't on his training at all.

When he falls down, a hand to the floor, the boy looks at him. It's only with him he does that, too, still sorry for what the other Syaoran did to Fai, not daring to do so with the princess.

“I didn't mean to be noisy.”

“Tch,” Kurogane shrugs as he takes notice of the kid. “You're distracted. That's why you're noisy.”

He looks down and Kurogane can read into his expression before he says anything at all.

“... I can't think of her,” the boy says, finally, defeat in his voice at what he sees as a weakness. “I've seen her... but she's not the Sakura I knew. And I'm not...”

Respect for the kid spreads through him and Kurogane reaches to toussle his hair a little, startling Syaoran. It's the first time he's seen him this relaxed, Kurogane realized, and if not relaxed at least not as tense.

“Give yourself some credit,” he says, voice gruff as he tucks his hands back into his pockets. “And get some rest.”

He turns around before he gets the 'yes' from Syaoran, but it's a long time before he stops hearing feet hitting the wall and it's even longer before he sleeps again.

*

The fucked up thing here is – among a lot of fucked up-ness – that the kid also knows the princess, if only for the shared memories of the other Syaoran and him. Kurogane thinks about how much he wanted to protect Piffle Tomoyo even though she wasn't his princess, and that was even without actually knowing her.

He gathers, had he been in the kid's place, watching her grow up all the time, he probably would've gone mad, had there something happened.

So when he hears Syaoran's breathing shift, Kurogane only opens his eyes. Even in this the boy is quiet, but there's something more than just embarrasment. Something deeply ashamed at his own weakness, once more, and Kurogane glances towards the place where the kid is leaning against the wall, some ill-reflected light highlighting his profile and the way his hand moves between his legs. His wrists are injured – a bad fall, today – so even that relief must hurt like hell.

Kurogane moves and the kid stops, focusing on him. He can´t see the flush to his face or the sweat that's probably there, but that isn't important. He knows the kid will apologize, still feeling a foreigner and Kurogane decides that he's fucking tired of that shit, too. Acting as if he was somehow at fault of they missing the other Syaoran is being really fucking unfair.

He moves then, pushes Syaoran's body a little away from the wall he's sitting against so that he can sit down there and pulls the boy's body flush against him, wrapping an arm around his body and moving his other hand to curl around his cock.

Syaoran gasps. “Kurogane-san...”

“Shush,” Kurogane mutters, leaning his head down. He can feel lean muscles shifting as he starts stroking, Syaoran doing his best to keep his breathing controlled. One of his hands move to his wrist, not to push him away or he would've let go but mostly to be there, as if he was starved for human touch.

When Kurogane realizes that it might be that, since the kid spent so many years trapped, his jaw clenches: another reason to kill that son of a bitch Reed for.

“Please,” Syaoran murmurs, leaning against him in a way that speaks about trust. The least Kurogane can do is do the same and he humms, low and pleased, teasing the head of Syaoran's cock, keeping his other hand against his stomach. Syaoran's hips move against his hip and the soft gasps that he can't quite keep down make his own cock start to harden, but Kurogane ignores it, leaning his head against Syaoran's. The lack of light means he doesn't catch the way Syaoran's eyes open for a moment as he comes, but he feels the way his body tenses and the wetness over his hand, and Kurogane keeps on stroking him through his orgasm until Syaoran's body falls back against him, breathing hard.

Idly, he reaches for the towel or paper that he knows must be there – no way someone like Syaoran would do this without taking precautions – and he cleans his hand before carefully cleaning Syaoran, too. The boy hasn't moved from against his chest and it takes Kurogane a few moments to realize that he has fallen deeply asleep, his fingers still curled lazily around his wrist.

He smiles, just a little, sighing before he leans against the wall, feeling Syaoran breathing underneath his hand. He can let the kid rest for a while like this. He deserves that much.  



End file.
